Dinner led to dance, and dance led to Danish.
My parents rumbaed through my Brooklyn childhood. They were deaf. And when they danced after supper to the music of Xavier Cugat, they turned up the volume to feel the rhythms through the floorboards. They had met at a dance for the deaf at which my father, Danny London, a classy featherweight boxer, a title contender, had been the guest of honor. My mother, Muriel, in her school albums,in the space reserved for "Hero," had already written his name. In the midst of this music, Danny would blurt out "Muriel, coffee, coffee, coffee." Dinner led to dance, and dance led to Danish.

So begins the Mrs. London's Baking Book which I hope to write one of these days. I've included this paragraph because Danish and I go a long way back. Yes, it was our after-dinner dessert, though we had it mornings on weekends. Danish goes by many names and I have a number of stories to tell along the way, but as an apprentice in Manhattan in the early seventies I first learned how to make Danish at William Greenberg Jr., Desserts and at Eclair Pastries. My favorite Danish, however, was at Patisserie Dumas, also in Manhattan. Theirs, I thought, was the flakiest.

Our Danish is all at once rich, light and flaky.
Our own yeast-risen Pecan Wreath, however, is the epitome of the weekend coffee-cake. We make it daily, but we sell a lot more on the weekends, the more indulgent days of the week. Our Danish is all at once rich, light and flaky. This Pecan Wreath is filled with ground pecans, rum-soaked raisins and cinnamon sugar. It's hand-braided and the surface is studded with pecan halves. It's really wonderful. It can serve as breakfast itself or as a delicious accompaniment to coffee or tea. And yes, my dad did, in fact, dunk his Danish. But you know, the French too, do their share of morning dunking. You should see what gets sloshed in those big bowls of café au lait.